Crubcast | Transcript: #59 Games that have too much game

#59 Games that have too much game

July 5, 2024 / 52:42/E59

Do all video games suck?

I think that's what we're talking about today here on the Crubcast.

My name's Kevin.

I'm here with three of my fellow Co-Crubbers, including Mr.

Travelton Guy.

Hi, Trav.

Hello.

And Mr.

Sean.

Hi, Sean.

I didn't get a nickname, hi.

You're Sean-elton.

You'll be Sean-elton.

That'll be-

It's too late, it's too late.

I don't care.

And I'm here with Buckle-Buckleton.

Nicco, hi Nicco.

What's up, fellas?

Yes, Buck-Buckleton, it is I.

Yeah, what are we talking about today?

Today, fellas, we are talking about when a game is just too gosh darn big for its own good.

You know, you think about open worlds, right?

We've seen games get bigger and bigger.

We've talked about it on the pod before.

But when does that start to take away from either the message of the game or how much you want to play it?

And where is that line for you?

Where do you think that line would be for most people?

So I suppose I'll start off with Trav.

Do you have any examples of sort of maybe open world games or games that have a lot of side content that just make you like a, I kind of don't want to play this.

So when you asked me that question originally in the pre-show when we were rehearsing this entire podcast, my original thought was the new Zelda games.

But then I thought, I do like to do everything in those, even though I never 100%ed Tears of the Kingdom, but I want to.

So I thought about it a little longer, and I thought, you know, I might have to say like Modern Far Cry.

There's just too much.

And I love those kinds of checklist games.

I was going to say, anything Assassin's Creed, anything Ubisoft in general, really all of the Ubisoft, definitely.

They are, if there's any games that you could argue are AI generated, it's probably those.

There's a lot of content in there that you just don't know.

You have to assume humans are responsible for it, but you really don't.

You don't know.

Yeah.

Because they make those games every year somehow and they get bigger and bigger.

I'm thinking of Assassin's Creed, the Odyssey, Origins and Valhalla trilogy, for example.

Wasn't like Unity and Black Flag, weren't they released like the same year, or Brotherhood and Black Flag?

Yeah, Unity and Rogue were the same.

Unity and Rogue, there were two in the same year.

Yeah.

Because Rogue was like the last gen one, that's why they did that.

They had a separate smaller thing.

That makes sense, I guess.

I thought they released two like full games within a calendar year.

They did at the same time, but it was like one is next gen, one is last gen.

And so one used the old style and then one was the multiplayer, one with the weird faces that didn't work.

Oh yeah.

Yeah.

Terrifying thing.

Speaking of weird faces that do work.

Sean, what's yours?

What that mouth do?

I didn't know my face worked.

I'm happy about that.

Gosh.

So yeah.

So Nicco brought up this idea a couple, I don't even know when, but he brought up this idea and like, it kind of made me think about like games.

Because when we say like, you know, games that are kind of like, Yeah, it made you think about games.

Yeah, it made me think about it.

Sorry.

The games that are like too big, it doesn't necessarily mean like, you know, the maps are too big or there's too much stuff to do, but it's like all the side content kind of like just weighs down what the story is about.

Because a lot of people don't finish the main quest in, say, Skyrim, that's not to say it's a bad game, but like, there's a lot of stuff to do in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth.

There's so much side stuff to do that kind of takes away from like, what is the main point of this game?

What's the main story of XYZ where you kind of just lose yourself in doing the side content.

At least that's what I do.

And I also, I wouldn't say, because I know a lot of people like to say that about Breath of the Wild because like, for example, Link's just bowling in the Snow Kingdom while Zelda's like fending off.

You could argue that like that entire game is optional content.

Right.

Let's go bowling.

But it's one of those like, when does so much like they throw so much stuff at you to do where it feels like they're trying to force you to go off the beaten path to do all the side stuff.

So it feels like you get your money's worth because it kind of feels like a lot of like newer games are trying to do that where they're trying to like, I wouldn't say pad, but like add more to the main story to the point where like it kind of overwhelms what the main story is and kind of like makes you want to do everything else on the side or like you kind of just don't want to do all the side stuff and you just want to, all right, I get it.

I'm at this new place.

I don't want to do these 13 checklists.

Just let me please get to the next mission.

As an example, Sean, and this is not to put you on blast in any way.

Have you finished Rebirth yet?

No.

Exactly.

And that's not an insult to you.

That's an insult to the game because that game is too much.

I thought you were going to ask him, have you played Kingdom Hearts?

Those games are mostly stories, so him not playing those is unacceptable.

Sorry.

I wanted to ask.

I have not played Rebirth yet.

I haven't played FF7 Remake at all yet.

I want to, but how, like, just quickly get it out of the way.

How egregious is the side content in Rebirth?

Disgusting.

Yes.

I remember reading early on that it's like, before you even really get, like, your first main quest, it just overloads you with side quests.

Yes.

Is that true?

It is.

I've said this before on the podcast, or at least during one of the pre and post shows we do live on Twitch, at twitch.tv/crubunderscoreofficial.

I think that that game is the weirdest example of a Japanese studio taking everything that every Western AAA experience has become in the open world space and just doing them without thinking about why.

That's the best way I can describe it, really.

There's too much.

I don't think the game is bad by any means.

There's so much.

I like to do the side stuff, and the side stuff are a lot of good moments with characters.

It's not just like, oh, I'm doing this as a checklist.

It's like, oh, I get to hang out with these.

You know, because Final Fantasy 7, like a lot of people love the characters.

So you get more interaction with the characters.

You get more like, you know, behind the scenes things.

So like, there's actual reason to do the side content.

But it's like, okay, there's so much to do that it kind of detracts you.

You know, and then in the case of Rebirth, like a lot of the stuff that has merit to like building your team out and like building out like your your relationship with your party is stuff that's actually mandatory.

It just is optional content in the sense that it's not main story.

Yeah, like the actual side stuff doesn't have much at all to it.

Like, it's like the characters walk around, you go fight things, and you might have a single line of dialogue.

Like, Chadley speaks more than any character in that.

Yeah.

Remake.

Remake is like not that bad about it.

Like remake side content is like kind of fine.

Yeah, in quantity and quality, right?

Like, it feels like the right amount in remake.

I think I've not played.

And the thing is people complained about remake as the problem.

Like, that's where that all started from is people said, well, remake's only 40 hours.

And how is only 40 hours a bad thing in a game that only a third of people even got to chapter 15 of 18?

You know, I swear to God.

Like, so that's the thing with like the Elden Rings of the world, right?

Like, the DLC just dropped.

I haven't bought it yet.

I'm thinking about getting it.

I probably will at some point.

But like, it's just so hard to justify.

Oh, man, another like 100 plus hours in Elden Ring, right?

Like, it's just so much stuff.

And like, that game is like perhaps a little bit different because the story is not like the real, like why you're there for the most part.

But like, yeah, I don't know.

I mean, I hope Rebirth is like not.

I do like the idea of it's hard to justify 100 hours in Elden Ring when in the same breath, I could very much see you being like, all right, I'm going to go put 100 hours into each Souls game again.

Besides Elden Ring.

It's true, dude, it's true.

It's so true.

I think for you, like I get where you're coming from, because it's you're especially with the DLC, you prefer like the actual like, you know, checklist slash walkthrough, where you're really not going to get that.

You're not.

Whereas I really like the whole like the DLC comes out.

I have no idea what the piss I'm doing.

People are like still figuring out and I'm just going to fight this like a demon dog thing with hands and they look like a lion and now they're throwing lightning at me and I hate this guy.

But oh my gosh, I love him.

Right.

Yeah, I always I try to do things optimally.

It's true.

Dude, yeah, I mean, it's and Kevin's absolutely right.

I'd spend hundreds of hours to go through all of them again.

You know, but I think the difference there is that I've paid my dues as a souls vet.

And I can between watching a new show and starting and watching the old one over again.

I know it's like all jokes.

So true.

It's so true.

And like and I didn't I don't get it for anything that's not music and souls games, which are the two things I primarily consume.

So I guess, you know, I guess I get it for most of my my media consumption.

Yeah.

There was another game I thought of.

I cannot remember it for life.

I have one that I actually like brought.

I don't mean to cut you off.

Oh, it was just going to be like there's like a couple of visual novels out there that I think of.

We're like, you know, those very like story driven games.

We have to make choices where you have to do multiple playthroughs to get like the real ending.

And like there's like a whole other say chapter you have to do.

Right.

Those are.

Yeah.

It's not like and it's not like the new game plus in Armored Corps six, right?

We're like, right.

The game is totally different.

Essentially.

Yeah.

It gives you a new path.

You just have to redo the entire thing.

Oh, like, oh gosh, what am I thinking of?

Fire Emblem Three Houses where to get the new story stuff, you have to play through the.

Yeah.

It's like once you get to a certain point, you can do more.

And like it's actual different story, but like that first half is just getting everybody good.

All right.

Yeah.

It's not even getting everybody good.

It's for those that are uninitiated into Three Houses.

That game has four major pathways that they set up, but they only really diverge after the time skip, which is about, I don't think it's like 12 chapters in, but it's like a significant portion of the game.

And I don't remember what the chapter number was.

Where they do the time skip and then everything becomes a completely different game.

But it's not really easy to skip the first half of the game to get there.

You still have to do all of the stuff.

You can go through it quickly because New Game Plus makes it a little bit faster, but it's still like, oh, instead of spending 20 hours doing that, it's only 10, and that's still 10 hours of my life that I would rather not spend doing the same things.

Yeah, and you still have to get everyone's levels up and social stuff and blah, blah, blah.

Then you get a new story thing that you had no idea about.

Well, the social stuff is pay to win once you get the New Game Plus because you can use your in-game bonus currency to make someone an S-rank friend.

For example, I've given Trav money so that we can become friends, and you can give us money to become friends at patreon.com/crub, where you get every piece of bonus video content for $5 a month as well as access to a bunch of other cool perks.

And for $10 a month, you can get all of our extra audio content, including things like podcast Aemon, the podcast where we watch every episode of Pokemon.

Nicco talks music with every single Crub member, introducing us to new genres and styles of music, including penis music and more.

So patreon.com/crub, check it out.

I guess we're locked into that now.

I wonder who's going to get that.

Someone's got to do penis music now.

Yeah, I guess we got to do it.

We'll talk about the history of penis music.

Yes.

The whole course.

And also join our Discord at crub.org/join, where we have established a new and exciting thing called Book Crub.

Every month we choose a game available on Game Pass, PS Plus, Steam, Free Weekend, Amazon, Twitch, Giveaways or Epic free weekly games to play over the month.

Then at the end of the month, we host a private chat on the Crubcast Discord, where we'll spend an hour or two talking together about the games with you.

You'll be a part of the roundtable discussion, get to give us your thoughts, problems, likes, dislikes, desires, jokes.

Anyone who's a patron, a Twitch subscriber or a YouTube member can join.

This month, the game is Chivalry 2, a team hack and slash where you play as a medieval knight.

And that text comes to you straight from the mouth of Moriarty, our good friend.

I wanted to get the promo out there for BookCrub.

You should write the promos for everything else too.

Because we don't do that.

Yeah, we don't actually.

We do that now, it's true.

We're professionals too.

Yeah, I forgot about the tier list that I do with people.

The tier list?

Sean's tier list?

I was gonna do a tier list, Sean.

I was gonna mention the tier list, but then I was already at the $10 plug.

We never did our X-Men 97 spoiler cast.

We should just turn that into a tier list.

We still haven't done the Better Call Saul, Slippin Jimmy podcast.

It's still on my mind.

That's for a reason.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We do gotta talk about that.

It's true.

Would you care to go into more detail on what religious conflicts you had with Slippin Jimmy?

Well, the only episode I saw clips from was when Slippin Jimmy is talking about how stinky his teacher is.

And they do this very elaborate fart joke.

And look, I think that's against my religion.

You had a homerun just in saying all cartoons are the devil, because you draw things, so it would have been even funnier.

Hold on, let me roll the clip back.

Rewind it.

Edit it.

Well, you see, cartoons are the devil.

Take it from me, a former video computer artist.

I had to quit, because I started praising Satan.

Did you only draw computers?

You just draw pictures of computers.

I had a whole Mac95...

I don't remember what they're called.

Did you ever draw a MacBook breastfeeding another MacBook?

You could.

Yeah, but the breasts were like apples, because they come from Apple.

At the time of recording, I saw Ken Pender's on Twitter.

I don't even know if that's PG.

Breastfeeding is perfectly normal.

I hope everyone at my house has heard me.

So I want to talk about Fallout New Vegas.

Interesting.

Just to get us back on this, just a little bit.

I think Mr.

House would breastfeed Yes Man, Trav.

Absolutely.

That's actually going to be in season two.

Oh, I can't wait.

So I really have been having a fun time playing Fallout New Vegas, but the side quests and the way that the game is structured is not clear enough to me that it's like, okay, in every other open world game that I've played that I've enjoyed, so think your Horizons of the World, Zero Dawn and Forbidden West, they sort of take you through the story and then they guide you to the next place that has quests, essentially.

And along the way, sometimes you'll run into shit, swear jar me, or you'll get to your next location and they'll have NPCs that have goodies for you.

In New Vegas, it seems to have that, minus the meeting NPCs and doing like stuff along the way.

So I'm making the U-shape down around, right, like you're kind of supposed to, I'm not going through the Deathclaw territory, but now I'm at a point where the next story quest that I have to do is way far away from me in New Vegas.

And you don't have to cross a lot of like the wasteland to get there, but it is like a far distance.

And I'm afraid to start going up there and doing the main storyline because I feel that like the quests, like it's too long of a distance and I'm not like, you know, I've done just about all the exploring that I want to do.

Everything else that I can explore right now is like either Caesar's Legion or like Deathclaw territory, right?

Like way high level.

And I'm trying to get, I'm not trying to get rid of my companions just yet, right?

So I still have Boon with me, so I can't go do the Caesar's Legion stuff.

And sorry, I'm getting into the weeds here.

Let me get to the point.

It's too much game.

There's, I feel like I'm aimless.

And I feel like I don't want to, I feel like I don't, I'm not supposed to go do the main story yet.

So I'm not because it's so like far away.

So I'll, do you want any pointers with that?

So I'll, Trav.

Bounce with me on this one.

Tell me if I'm wrong here, Trav.

Nicco, so this sounds to me, and this is not to put you on blast in any way.

No, that's fine.

That's fine.

This sounds to me like you are coming at this from the perspective that I know you are, which is someone who has played open world games now, where as you're not, you're playing a game from 2010, and you're going to Mission 2, and you are afraid to start Mission 2.

Well, I think it sounds more like, No, no, it's more than Mission 2.

He's going to Mission, say, but regardless, it's not actually Mission 2.

Figuratively, you're going to Mission 2, and it sounds like you're afraid of hitting, Like getting locked in.

Yeah, I don't want to get locked in in New Vegas.

That's the great, Yeah, and I don't have the DLC installed.

I think seriously, it's going to be, you're going to understand it better and appreciate it better if you come back to the, like, finish it, and then maybe give it another shot, because in that path, there's going to be so much stuff that you encounter for either side quests or even main story quests that just drop on you.

And it's not like it just comes out of nowhere.

You'll see this really cool landmark and be like, oh, what the hell is this?

Or an NPC will run up to you, and you'll, like, get intrigued, like, oh, what's this guy's story?

Like, there's only a little bit of that pathway, that highway up to New Vegas that isn't going to have more quests to it.

The thing that you...

The thing that I think maybe is hitting you here is...

And we had talked about this a couple weeks ago as well.

Yeah, I haven't really played in a couple weeks for the record.

There's been a lot of time between playing the game, for one.

But there's also the element of, like, keep in mind your character got shot in the head.

And so his goal is to go find the bastard that shot him in the face.

And that guy is in Vegas somewhere based on the poker chip you had on you.

So if you are roleplaying as your character in this game, presumably that objective is still, I want to go find out why I was shot.

So you've been doing stuff almost antithetical to the roleplay, depending on how you're roleplaying your character, because you've been getting, forcibly distracting yourself with all this side content.

Yes, I've been forcibly distracting myself, but I just want to do the main quest right now.

But I don't want to be underleveled, basically.

You don't want to worry about that.

Go to the main quest.

If you're ever afraid of being underleveled, you will know when there's a level gate, and it will usually let you leave and go level up to get more stats that you need for whatever conversation you're at.

But when you get to New Vegas, there's still the town that borders New Vegas that you can't...

That's your stat check.

If you rush to New Vegas, there's a stat check there.

I see.

Yeah, I mean...

And the other thing that I think you should know is that with New Vegas, a lot of these side quests do end up becoming important to the main quest.

And also, you are supposed to not do every quest.

You are...

If you pick...

Like, go with a certain faction, there is a point where, like, other factions' quests won't be available to you.

This isn't like Horizon or Far Cry where you just check every quest off.

Like, this is a role-playing game in that aspect.

That's why I'm a little, like, hesitant, a little cautious, because, like, I did go find a side quest that was, like, accidentally specific to the NZR.

And if I would...

If I were to go finish that quest now, I would lock myself out of a Caesar's Legion mission.

No, I...

There is...

There are two or three quests in the entire game that you can lock yourself out.

There's a chance you did find one of the ones, but you can do...

I wouldn't put it past him.

It's totally possible he found one.

You can do just about every quest, no matter what path you're on.

And you can do any path and change your mind about ten different times throughout the game.

There is a point in the game where it tells you, like, if you do this, like, it'll pop up with one of those orange text boxes.

Like, if you do this, you cannot do, like, Caesar's quest anymore.

And so what I'm going to encourage you to do, Nicco, is while playing the game, stick to your morals.

Like, roleplay as yourself.

Be like, hey, this guy's making me do shit I'm not comfortable with, because in most cases, there's going to be alternatives.

Like, in my playthrough, I sided a lot with the NCR, but that was because I was able to influence them to be better.

Like, the NCR by themselves, not great, but you can use speech checks to be like, hey, this is not the way to do it.

By the end of it, I was able to bring together the NCR brotherhood and the boogers and all that.

That sounds like a way to play that I'd be interested in, right?

You can do anything, generally.

The only place that you can get locked out is...

There are two places where you can get locked out, and both of them are like act breaks of the game.

Because getting New Vegas is essentially not really the end of act one, but you can kind of argue spiritually it is.

Act two, there's a lot more to it.

Like Trav said, it will warn you explicitly when there is a point at which it is now too late.

But, as someone mentioned in chat, there's also a reset when you get to Vegas, so no matter what you've done, you haven't locked yourself out of anything.

Unless somehow you went to Caesar's Legion and killed Caesar, but I'm pretty sure he wouldn't actually be there until you get to Vegas, so you can't do that.

That makes sense.

I did that once because I thought I was just supposed to...

In my very first playthrough of New Vegas, I was like, well, the goal...

I was still in high school and didn't understand how video games work, so I'm like, yeah, I mean, the goal of the game is to go and kill Caesar, right?

He's the bad guy.

And so I was like, all right, I'm bored, don't know what to do, looked up where Caesar's camp was on the map, went over there.

All of the NPCs, like their dialogue was broken because I was just not supposed to be there yet.

Like they would not talk.

They wouldn't fight me either.

Same with Caesar.

He would just look at me.

And so I just killed him and walked away.

You can kill him earlier than I thought you could.

I thought he wasn't even there until you actually...

It's not like other Fallout New Vegas things, where going to a major character like that will trigger the quest for you.

Because usually that's what happens, is like you talk to a character and it's like, oh, here's the alternate way to start this quest, rather than being told, go meet Caesar or whatever.

Point is, you are 5% of the way through a game that people complained was too short, find you.

Like Louise, like 5%.

I'm like almost all the way around the horseshoe.

I mean, the horseshoe should only take you ostensibly.

If you were rushing it, maybe two hours to get through.

But when you're talking about the horseshoe, you're talking about the way to New Vegas to avoid the.

Yeah, OK.

Yeah, two hours.

You've done every piece of side content on the way.

Like it takes you a while otherwise, but you can just walk up and do it and you'll be like level 10.

You get there.

Yeah.

So like, let me give you an example.

Early on, you know, you did you do the thing with the powder gangers at the beginning where you help the the gas so the powder gangers camp you show up at the powder gangers hate me.

That's good.

No.

OK.

Yeah.

So I do think there is an objective way to play.

Yes.

Caesar's camp.

This is unrelated to what I was about to say.

Yes, Caesar's faction does have quests.

I think they're all pieces of shit.

I think that you are morally correct to never do a Caesar's quest unless you just want to see what the content is, which is fine.

But that was the stuff that got cut.

Yeah.

A lot of the Caesar's stuff got cut.

I just kind of want to see the content because I don't see myself playing this game twice.

I see myself playing it.

I think you really should go through this game and you don't have to play however you want.

But I'm going to encourage you to play this game as you are role playing as yourself, how you would realistically respond to dialogue prompts as you would.

And just go with it.

It's totally fine to go through the checklist of your quests.

I did too, eventually.

But just go through it, pay attention.

Not pay attention as in like, come on, Nicco, pay attention.

But actually absorb what the NPCs are talking about.

I'm such a metagamer, dude.

I'm such a metagamer.

I used to be too.

I just want to get the best loot.

I was going to say, in that sense, you've been playing the game the quote unquote correct way in that you have done all the side stuff because New Vegas does what 3 does not.

In that it funnels you through a bunch of side quests to distract you from the main quest.

A, because both main quests and actually every Fallout main quest is pretty short.

But B, because they want you to have experienced a lot of the Breath of the Wild-isms that that game did way before Breath of the Wild, but that open world, oh, let me see that and go over there.

It wants you to do that in a way that 3 kind of punishes you four at times because there's a lot of times you can do that and end up in an area that you're not nearly leveled enough for.

New Vegas specifically warns you by way of there are death claws here when you're not supposed to go somewhere.

But you're supposed to be level 10 by the time you get to New Vegas, not even.

10?

Oh, God, I'm like 15.

Yeah, you are very overleveled because you've been avoiding doing the main quest.

So don't worry too much about that because as you level up more, it means that more types of enemies will spawn.

So it'll always say interesting.

It's not like you'll just sweep through everything.

Yeah, you're just overleveled for the story beats is what is more to my point.

Well, that's sort of my point, though.

I want to be overleveled.

I always want to do all the side content.

It's just you're going to start seeing new enemy types and stuff.

There are multiple whole cities of neutral quests for you to do when you get to the outskirts of Vegas.

You have seen the opening maybe 10 quests of the side content offerings.

There are double that in, I forget the name of the border town of New Vegas, but in that town and in Vegas, whole ass swaths of things to do that will distract you all the same.

There's a whole Elvis side quest.

Cool.

Yeah, because that's what...

Oh my god, the Elvis quest is so good.

To sort of bring it back and put a nice bow on this, I think I feel like I've just hit a wall because I don't have any side quests that are active that I can complete in that moment.

And my next main quest is in New Vegas, and I've been told, perhaps erroneously, perhaps not, I don't know, but I've been told that New Vegas is like 5% of the game, or like 10% of the game, right?

Obviously, it seems like people's percentages of this game are perhaps skewed.

Not most of your quests, but almost all the main quests are going to have you going to and from Vegas a bunch.

There's an NCR camp right outside of Vegas, which will also trigger that.

Caesar's going to find you as soon as you get into Vegas, and he's going to send a guy to be like, hey, come talk to me.

And that's how you're supposed to get to Caesar, which again, I guess, Trav, in your case, I don't know if you did anything.

I used console commands to like unlock doors.

Oh, so you can't kill Caesar.

Okay.

So then, yeah, point is like you can't even get to Caesar.

I forgot about that detail.

I left that detail out.

Right, right, right.

But yeah, like you literally go into it, you go into Vegas, there's a whole last couple hours of distractions for you to get into Vegas or you can skip it technically now because you're overleveled.

Like the whole outside border town is there to get you to the right level to then be able to get into Vegas because you either need to pass a science check, I think it is, or you need to get a pass to get in.

Right.

I haven't even gotten like there yet for the record.

Yeah, that's at the end of the highway.

Like once you go up the highway, there's like the NCR camp, there's the city, there's the other city.

Because I thought there was a lot more to like explore before then, right?

Like that was my like trepidation.

And that was why I prompted this discussion today because, you know, it's a lot of content.

I feel like I was feeling a little overwhelmed by not having things to do and being like, oh, man, now it feels like work.

Like I have to go explore this world and like go find things to do.

But it turns out I'm overleveled anyway, so I think I'm fine to just continue.

Yeah, like I said, like they are meant to distract you for a couple hours before you get there and then you get there and then the game starts.

Yeah.

No, it's true.

It's true.

World building.

Kevin, have you thought about any any games that sort of make you feel this way in the in the time that we've been talking about this or just I still don't know what we're talking about.

Yeah.

You were like, so it's arguably too much side condom.

The bigness the bigness of the game is a turn off.

Um, you guys ever play Ligma?

Yeah.

Twice.

Is that is that like part of the Suggma Saga?

Yeah.

No, actually.

Well, it's metal slugma.

Yeah, metal slugma.

As far as games, I kind of mentioned it with the Assassin's Creed stuff with anything Ubisoft.

It's why I don't play anything Ubisoft because it's all very formulaic.

And for that type of fan, that's perfect.

I already don't have time for big games usually anyway, because those eat up my other game time, which I use for work.

So my case is, you know, and Trav's case and Sean's case, is privileged to some extent because we're talking about video games we would want to play for leisure, but also we play video games for leisure and slash work, and that's a whole thing.

Yeah.

But as far as other examples go, it's funny because talking about New Vegas, I think about Fallout 3, because I was playing that for fun when the show came out, and I realized how short Fallout 3 is compared to what I thought it was.

I remember putting hundreds of hours into it on 360.

I did everything in the game and all the side quests and all the DLC in about 40, 50 hours.

Every single thing outside of getting the Merv.

I didn't do that on Marked Quest.

So a lot of times I've realized that the games that I thought were long, and it's like that childhood experience of, oh man, I remember Mario 64 taking me 400 hours to beat.

And then you're like, oh, that game's five minutes.

I think there's something...

I was going to say, that's just me with Banjo Kazoo.

We were like Chrono Trigger where it's like, oh yeah, that was like...

Chrono's a great example because Chrono's only like 20 hours, and everyone thinks that game's like this massive epic of a game because it's a stellar game, but it's also like the rare short JRPG.

But I guess I've realized as time's gone on that in the same way that we were talking about Rebirth earlier, there's a lot of enstretchening of games, to coin a Nicco term there.

There's a lot of enstretchening of games lately because they want you to keep the game in your mind long enough to distract you until the next one is almost ready to maybe sort of start to be announced.

There's complaints, again, to go back to 7 Remake and Rebirth.

People complained that Remake was too short.

It's a 40-hour game.

And most people didn't beat it.

And people complained that it was too short, which gives the wrong idea for Rebirth.

And that's how you lead to things like, well, what if this game is 100 hours and it only needs to be 40?

That's how Elden Ring got Melania as well, like for the same people, like it's too easy, and they put Melania in, continue, so my bad.

No, no, people were like, people were like, Souls games are too easy.

Well, Souls games are always meant to piss off Souls fans.

Like the goal of the Souls game is to find a new way to challenge everybody, because otherwise people would complain they're too easy.

Yeah, because Elden Ring was very much like, everyone wanted to do like the strength build.

It's like, oh, well, what if you did magic?

I don't want to do magic.

Well, magic's actually really good, so piss off.

Magic's the way to go in that game.

Literally, they built for years the concept of magic being useless in Souls games, to specifically then have the moment of, well, actually, that's the correct way to play now.

Shut the hell up, nerd.

And that's why I decided, no magic.

And I have not used magic in that game.

I was a magic builder organically in Elden Ring before I knew that was the meta.

Just because I was like, you know, I don't feel like fighting things up close, because I'm scared.

And so I went magic build and then it was, oh, that's the good way of playing this game.

Whereas now, yeah, it's yeah.

Now I'm just like, I have two swords.

I can step twice as fast.

Which, yeah.

Maybe I do want to play Shadow of the Airdrie.

You're not going to.

Probably not.

Sorry.

I am telling you this right now.

You're going to wait like you should wait until like after.

Yeah, I'm going to wait.

I'm going to wait a couple of months, at least.

Yeah.

Now, start it right away from started right this moment.

And don't come to too many games at the time.

I'm going this weekend.

Don't come to too many games.

It already happened.

So if you're listening to this, we were at too many games last week.

I hope it was good.

We all had stickers to give you, but you know, you weren't there.

So I guess, yes.

How dare you?

Except for me, I only get stickers from people I don't ask for stickers.

Maybe if we gave the staff stickers, they would let us actually be guests.

They'll remember us.

Even though we've already had panels twice.

Three times.

I think four.

Anyway.

So the moral of the story is that games have gotten stretched out for the sake of multiple reasons.

But there's an interesting back and forth in my mind of like, okay, but that makes them more expensive to produce.

So I'm surprised that we are getting so many of those.

But then again, you see the stuff like, oh, Spider-Man was too short as a 20 hour game.

No, like maybe it's just maybe it's just that you're a hardcore gamer that plays a game in one sitting and then complains when it's done.

Maybe that's what the problem is.

I would be so fine with perhaps a tiny bit of shrink flation in video games, just a little shrink flation as you ask.

It already happened, like, because games are $70 now.

And people were like, how is this only like again?

Rift Apart is the one I've mentioned on air a few times.

I'm always fascinated because people say that game is short.

That is the longest Ratchet and Clank game.

The game is so meaty.

It's only like, you know, you play just the main story.

It is like a nine to ten hour game.

That is the longest Ratchet and Clank game.

And also, like, if you consider the technology, which I know most gamers probably aren't, but like being able to switch back and forth between the universes is insane.

You know, because didn't they use that tech in Spider-Man 2 with like the Black Cat missions?

Yeah, it was the Doctor Strange mission and then the fast travel.

Oh, also there was some stuff with the Miles side quests, some of the mysterious stuff.

That also used the Pearl stuff.

They used like the actual...

Anyway, point is, like, people complained that game was too short because it was $70 and only, you know, nine to ten hours.

If you don't do side stuff, in which case it's like 12 to 15.

And, you know, I'm always fascinated by people thinking, like, again, the Mario 64 thing.

Oh, Ratchet and Clank used to be so much longer.

No, you were a child.

Yeah.

The parts of Ratchet and Clank that I hated as a kid, like the middle part that I was always like, oh, I don't really want to play this part of the game, is like two hours long.

And it turns out that game's only like seven hours long.

And I'm just a stupid kid who's grown up and realizes now that time is not the same thing that it was because we're all getting older and dying.

As a kid, I don't know if you guys were like this, but when I was still in elementary school, I was only allowed to play a couple hours of games a day.

It was one of those kind of things for me.

I remember Sonic Adventure 2 taking months for me to get through.

But then I grew up and realized...

I thought I didn't have a memory card.

True.

Oh, that's interesting.

I had the same problem then that I have now, is that I was just involved in a lot of things.

And so I never was at home for long enough to like super sit and play a video game.

Which is why a TV show...

I was a huge TV head back in high school.

Still am.

It's easier to justify a half an hour of watching a TV show than it is to justify X hours of session of gaming.

That's how I was with movies for a long time.

And still sometimes.

I don't really want to start a movie because that's a commitment.

It's true.

It's so long, dude.

It is absolutely so long.

And Trav, to your point, to go back to like the whole, the nostalgic perspective of games being shorter when we were younger, but us thinking they're longer, and then to hit also on what you were saying, Nicco, there's that element of when you're a kid, it's almost like you have to stretch before you do athletics, you know?

Like you're like, oh, I got to start playing Sonic Adventure 2.

And then you're like, oh, I don't remember how to play Sonic Adventure 2.

I need like 10 minutes to warm up.

Oh, that's only 20% of the time I had to play the game.

And Souls, Souls games are the worst about this.

If you play one Souls game and then you try to go play another one right back to back, because the controls are just slightly different and the timing is just slightly different, it just like messes you up.

Dark Souls 3 not having B to jump threw me off.

I played Lies of P one day and then like a few hours later played Bloodborne and that was like the worst decision I ever made in my entire life.

No, because I was like all the but Lies of P has like totally different like button prompts and everything.

I'm like everything's wrong.

Everything's wrong.

I'm wrong.

I will say Lies of P highly recommend excellent excellent game.

However, Sean is right.

It's definitely different enough from the Souls games where it's like, yeah, you might not want to do these ones back to back.

Yeah, even putting down Lies of P because I was close to doing everything in that game because I did the new game plus.

And I put it down at one point and I'm never going to be able to go back and finish that new game plus run because I have no idea what the hell I'm doing.

I did the same thing, man.

I'm on the final boss.

Lies of P, by the way, one of the best Souls games.

I'll say it.

I agree.

Honestly, could be a good entry point.

I'm not going to lie.

I think it's a stellar entry point.

Stellar entry point.

Yeah, I can say that.

Honestly, people tell the Elden Ring.

It's very well-wrote in its structure.

It's very much like, here's what a Souls game is like, according to every Souls game we've played.

But that's not a problem, because it then takes that and says, we don't need to be that complex in terms of, you know, super...

No, it's not story, because story is more complex than most Souls games in terms of it actually tells you a story.

Well, that's what I meant, instead of having you read through all the dialogue.

Like, it is a Souls game for the regular gamer to some extent, which I appreciate, because I don't need deep lore.

I don't need to read the wiki to learn what the story is.

Yeah, that's true.

It does have that too, though.

It has it, but it's optional.

Have any of you tried that new underwater crab Souls game?

Another Crab's Treasure.

It looks really cool.

It does look super cool.

And they have the Dark Souls filter.

LizaP is interesting too, because it has side content, and it has those side quests in such a way that it's not overwhelming, because it's a Souls game that I think respects your time more.

I'll say it.

I'll take the heat from Souls fans.

Souls games don't necessarily respect your time, and that's what people like about them, because they're anti-video games, and that's what I enjoy about them when I play them.

They are anti-video games, so that the level design of it feels like it's not a video game, so you feel like you're organically discovering things, ala the earliest Zelda games.

And I think that shit's rad.

But also...

Yeah, I like that.

That's why I'm enjoying playing Shadow of the Airdrie without looking up anything.

I'm just like, running for it.

Yeah, I never looked up, really, I don't like shit for Elden Ring.

Maybe like a couple things here or there of like, oh, I'm now already partway through the game.

Where's the best staff for my class type stuff, you know?

Oh, I did more so like, where the piss is this one item I need for this NPC?

Oh, it's over there.

Okay.

I never really engage with a lot of Souls side quests generally because I'm like, there's so much admin that goes into it that I'm like, if I wanted to do this much work, I would make a spreadsheet and I would do work, you know?

Yeah, I would say...

I have one X factor that I think is the reason why I like to look everything up and play optimally, and perhaps you guys don't.

I'm still bad at video games.

What?

I'm still bad at video games.

I'll probably be bad at video games forever.

You're bad at video game logic.

Right?

You're not bad at video games.

No, but the thing is, if I don't play the Souls games optimally, it will take me way, way too long to beat certain bosses or do certain things, right?

Unless I want to replay, for some reason, the second time I play the game, everything is just significantly easier across the board and no matter what.

But that's why I look things up.

I don't know.

I get the feeling of exploration.

I get the feeling of being like, okay, this is anti-video game.

This is fresh to me.

I wish I had it and I probably will one day, but not yet one day.

Sean, what were you going to say?

Sorry, I don't remember.

You should be sorry.

You took Sean's thought away from him.

Yeah, I did.

Bastard.

I am the thought.

Yoink, yoink.

Yeah, no, a lot of the stuff with Souls is always weird because Souls fans are very, they take pride in their ownership of the Souls franchise.

And I respect that, but it also means that you're being whiny gamer bitches more.

And I don't agree with that.

No, it's true.

As one of them, I agree wholeheartedly.

That almost at a point stretches into the difficulty in Souls games argument, which is a whole different discussion that we won't get into.

Which I think we have on the podcast feed somewhere.

Go back in the old episodes, go find it.

Maybe.

It's probably a thing.

We probably.

We do.

They talked about it pretty recently.

Yeah.

Fellas.

Do we have a Patreon question?

I don't know if we have one.

We do have a Patreon question.

We do.

It's from Wolfkaosaun and it's, when do I play Kingdom Hearts?

Never.

No.

The Patreon question.

Whenever you're ready to.

Yeah.

Whenever you're ready to.

The Patreon.

Sorry, Nicco.

You have.

You have Sora behind you on that on that serial box on screen.

Yeah.

Yeah, I do.

It's true.

Yeah.

Be sore, by the way.

Be sore.

So what's our Patreon question of the week?

Patreon question of the week, which you, viewer, dear listener, yes, you can get your own Patreon questions of the week if you join our Patreon, which we've plugged earlier in the episode.

The question this week comes from Chef Kilo.

What is a weird food combination you like?

Does anyone have one or do you guys want me to start?

Because I have.

You can go ahead and start.

Mine is bananas and cream cheese.

You could have just said cream cheese, honestly.

You could have just...

Yeah.

Just cream...

You mean you didn't eat...

I mean, I could see bananas and cream cheese working.

No, no, I just mean like what's a weird food combination that you like and Nicco just mentions cream cheese and literally anything else?

A parenthesis quantity, right?

Like cream cheese, parenthesis quantity.

Like cream cheese took a part of your body that you will never get back.

It did, which actually I don't eat as much cream cheese nowadays.

It got what it wanted.

That's good.

Yeah.

It did get what it wanted.

I have noticed that my stomach feels much better not eating the cream cheese.

But yeah, bananas and cream cheese...

So look, right?

My grandmother used to just like give me a cream cheese and banana sandwich.

Don't know why.

She did.

It's a true struggle meal.

Well, maybe not.

It's just a meal that I was a weird kid for liking.

But then there was an instrumental music song by Slightly Stupid that the saxophone line sounds like it's saying bananas, bananas, bananas, bananas and cream cheese.

And I just thought that was normal to like think about it that way.

And then it turns out it's just not.

So I was going to say my anecdote of the day.

I think I think you were trying to make a Pavlovian response.

I did try to make that happen.

My body just wanted to hear bananas and cream cheese.

Anyone else have a weird food combination?

Yeah, Jim Beam and sweet tea.

That's not that weird.

That's how you were drinking earlier.

See, like.

Is that was that sweet tea right to your right to your stage left?

Wow.

I have nothing.

I mean, I mean, you drink all your Jim Beam.

Are you good, dude?

That's a lot of brown liquor.

You see on the podcast today.

I'm good.

There's no Jim Beam in that.

Are we allowed to drink?

There's no tea in that.

Trav, what about you?

This isn't filled with coffee.

A lot of my weird food combinations is like, I don't think it's weird.

And then someone else is like, why are you drinking pickle juice and olives?

That's not true.

That's not what I do.

I was going to say that's bad.

Can you pickle back, girlie Trav?

Huh?

You pickle back, girlie?

You like pickle backs?

I don't know what that is.

It's a shot of whiskey followed.

Yeah, good man.

It's a shot of whiskey followed by a shot of pickle juice.

It's awful.

It sounds disgusting, but I'd try it.

At the time of this going live, you will have tried it at this weekend's festivities.

No way.

I got stickers this year.

Find me.

Oh, it just cut me out.

Did you see that?

Oh, no, I'm gone.

What were you going to say?

So, literally the weirdest...

Was it a fishbowl?

Was it a fishbowl, by the way?

No, it's full of Taco Bell sauce.

Yeah.

Let me think.

I just had a fishbowl in my office and I pick it up and shake it around.

We are never going to let Trav get out his food.

No, because I can't think of what I'm stalling.

Literally the weirdest thing I could think of is I really like having a PB&J sandwich with milk.

There's just something that the milk brings together.

But that's a normal thing.

I was told...

I learned that from cartoons.

What's a weird food combination you like?

Spaghetti and pasta sauce.

Well, I cannot think of one for the life of me.

I used to eat meatballs mashed up.

Like I used to only eat them if they were like mashed up.

What like a taco smoothie kind of thing?

Well, okay, when I was like an actual literal child, right?

Like I just wouldn't eat like the meatball.

So like two weeks ago?

I didn't mean that.

Well, yeah, who knows, man?

Who knows?

No, I was gonna let you finish.

No, Nicco has a package that's supposed to arrive.

If you guys are in the audio and video realm, this has been a cursed episode of the Crubcast in terms of setup, so we're recording later than usual.

I've been told I'm weird for liking jalapenos and olives on my pepperoni pizza.

That's the best I guess.

You're disgusting.

I don't like olives, but jalapenos I vibe with.

Yeah.

Like you get a little bit of kick to them.

Especially if they're like pickled jalapenos.

I love those.

I finally found hot honey in my local store, and I was like, oh thank god.

So I've been putting that on my pizza.

I've never tried that.

That sounds good.

It's really good.

Very good.

It's a little bit of sweet, especially if you're cooking the pizza, you know, either if you're getting a frozen pizza or you're making your own pizza.

If you put it in the sauce in some way while it's cooking, that's really useful.

Putting on a buffalo chicken pizza with hot honey.

So good.

It's fantastic.

Also, I used to be really tea.

Hot honey in your tea.

Like, you get some nice, some camel meal tea, and then you also feel your throat burning at the end.

Yeah, and then you put some Jim Beam in there.

What is camel meal?

So you know what I was saying earlier about the computer monitor breastfeeding the other computer monitor?

Yeah, yeah.

I'm so glad, because I'm like, Kevin's gonna take this in a weird direction.